Wednesday's WIPs and Books and Knitting-in-bits

It was chilly at Little Miss' ballet class on Monday (in her Leo-tard), and I knew the time had finally come to make her ballet wrap. Searching the bazillion patterns on Ravelry I couldn't find a top-down one-piece wrap cardigan in a suitable size/style and after 22 months of knitting I found myself resigned - at last - to "knitting in bits". I try to avoid this as much as possible. I really don't want to make something in bits and pieces and then have to sew them together (seams and ends everywhere), when it's EASIER to knit in one piece and I can check it fits while making it. But that's a personal opinion and clearly not a universal one as the majority of patterns still seem to be written this way *sigh*

So I turned to my modest knitting library and a book I've had about 5 years, since way before I could knit (I bought it hoping Mum would make some things from it). I also found some machine-washable DK yarn in the perfect colour in my stash - meaning this project would count towards my Year of Projects stash-busting goal! I cast on immediately.

After finishing the back last night, I added the project to my Ravelry page - only to discover the errata - it takes 5 balls not 4 as stated in the book. G'ah! This means I don't have enough yarn. So the ballet wrap will probably have stripy sleeves. Or pink ones. Or it'll be frogged.

Regardless of this most annoying error, there are some lovely knits in the book, for both girls and boys. Despite the title, the majority are sized up to age 4, and if the ballet wrap is anything to go by, they will fit bigger than that. There are 25 projects in total including dresses, jumpers, baby blankets, really cute baby shoes and all sorts of other lovely things. If you have a little person to make for, and you don't mind knitting in bits, then it's worth checking out. (You can see all of the patterns on Ravelry.)

Attentive regulars may notice that I am now onto the third in the Stonewylde series. I hadn't planned to read this one, but when I finished the second found myself downloading it immediately. It's good. Better than the others. I'm even managing to stay awake to read it, so it's almost finished. I might even take a look at the website.

I'm making the Lacy Sweater (with the flower on the front) from that book at the moment, for my little girl. I don't mind knitting in pieces, I find having a whole cardigan on the needles at the same time is often heavy and unwieldy. And seams give the finished item more structure. But I'm happy to do it either way.

I think striped sleeves will be just fine :-) I tend to knit seamless projects too, in fact I think the last seamed cardigan I knitted was when I was pregnant with my third child 4 years ago! I'm not a fan of bottom up projects either, top down just seems to make more sense to me lol

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